• winsome •
Pronunciation: win-sêm • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Attractive, charming, engaging in a child-like way.
Notes: No, this isn't the first part of the phrase 'winsome, losesome'. It is a lovely word with a lovely meaning read more in poetry and fiction than heard in conversations. It comes with a noun, winsomeness, and an adverb, winsomely. It may be compared the Germanic way, winsomer, winsomest, or the French way more winsome, most winsome.
In Play: This adjective describes the beauty and character of girls and women: "Marilyn was a winsome lass and clearly the prettiest of all those parading across the stage." Even attached to other words it always describes a girl: "Barbie Dahl was bright-eyed and eager to help with a winsome smile that captivated everyone."
Word History: Today's Good Word is an authentic Germanic English word (not borrowed). In Old English it was spelled wynsum with approximately the same meaning. It was made up of wyn "joy, delight" + -sum "as one, together with", a suffix akin to same. Wyn descended from Proto-Indo-European wen- "to wish for, strive, want, love", remnants of which may be seen in Sanskrit vanati "wins", the name of the Latin goddess of love, Venus, Latin venerari "to worship", and venor "to hunt", Irish fine "family", and German wohnen "to dwell". The suffix -sum comes from PIE sem- "as one, together with", also the source of the word same. We find evidence of it in Latin singulus "single, alone" and semper "always", Greek homos "same", Icelandic sin "oneself", and, perhaps, German sein "his, her, its". (Another lovely Good Word from grandmaster of suggestions, Rob Towart, contributing 132 GWs since 2009.)
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